


REBEL Y/N?

by skitzofreak



Series: Message Traffic [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Cassian really likes droids, Established but Tentatively New Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Historical References, Humor, Semi-Epistolary, Spy Stuff, Technology, a ridiculous number of references to spy movies, and music references while I'm at it, badass team, opinions about Droid Rights, sticking it to the Imperials
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2018-12-19 20:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11905548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: Cassian is an expert on droids. Jyn is really good at slicing. And all living things desire freedom.Welcome to the Robot Revolution.(sequel to "your words are mine to keep")





	1. Technologic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RoverKelevra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoverKelevra/gifts).



> This is technically a sequel to ["your words are mine to keep"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11835207/chapters/26713275), but really it's more a spiritual successor, and possibly you don't need to read the first to understand the second. A lot of the message traffic/social media formatting will be the same, but for this plot to work I wanted/needed to break away to describe some scenes as they happened. The story still revolves around Jyn, Cassian, and the Rebellion, but this time through a slightly different point of view. A much, much shorter point.
> 
> This story is for [RoverKelevra](http://archiveofourown.org/users/RoverKelevra/pseuds/RoverKelevra), with whom I had some very interesting conversations regarding the treatment of droids in the Alliance and in the Empire, and how the differences between the two really highlighted the principles of both organizations. That conversation birthed both K2SO's chapter of ["lions in her heart (fire in her soul)"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11648136/chapters/26203665) and this particular little story. So thanks for that, my friend.

 

[Internal Message Server HOME930][Keystroke Override Activated]

 

Andor [0913]: Is this training or punishment?

Erso [0913]: ??

Andor [0914]: I found the unsheathed knife in the footlocker. The one wrapped up in socks.

Erso [0915]: it’s a storage thing. i store things in it

Andor [0916]: You hide things in it. I nearly lost a finger getting a shirt out.

Andor [0917]: There was another blade tucked under the sink in the fresher.

Erso [0918]: just in case

Andor [0919]: I knocked it loose and it almost stabbed my foot.

Andor [0920]: So are you leaving knives everywhere to train me for something or is this punishment?

Erso [0921]: training. you should stop sticking your hands in things w/o looking. what kind of spy are you?

Andor [0922]: Jyn, how many blades are hidden in ~~my~~ the room?

Erso [0923]: [unsent] ~~your mission, should you chose to accept it~~

Andor [0923]: Don’t say it’s my mission to find out.

Erso [0924]: that was a really funny vid

Andor [0925]: Gross inaccuracies about covert operations. Way too many explosions. Creepy romance.

Erso [0926]: grouch.

Erso [0926]: you ok?

Andor [0927]: [unsent] ~~Of course, why do you as~~

Andor [0928]: I think we’re shipping out tonight.

Erso [0928]: you got briefing notice?

Andor [0929]: Yes. Draven’s office, 3 hours.  ~~And for some reason I have a bad feeling abo~~

Erso [0929]: i didn’t get it

Andor [0931]: You’re listed on my notice. ~~Since I’m your superior,~~ Comms assumed I would tell you.

Erso [0932]: because you’re my boss

Andor [0932]: [unsent] ~~Does that bother~~

Andor [0934]: [unsent] ~~Technically but~~

Andor [0935]: I’m your partner.

Erso [0936]: guess this means my med clearance came thru

Andor [0937]: Have you been to med today?

Erso [0938]: yesterday. i’m fine

Andor [0938]: No headaches?

Erso [0939]: nothing that will slow me down

Andor [0940]: [unsent] ~~I know you were in pain last nig~~

Andor [0941]: Pick up some painkillers before we go anyway.

Erso [0942]: worrywart

Andor [0943]: Yes. Please, Jyn.

Erso [0944]: ok. see you at big red’s office

 

-

 

“We lost Erith,” Draven told them without preamble as they walked into his office, and Cassian bowed his head, eyes closed for a long moment. Jyn, who hadn’t known Lieutenant Erith, stood uneasily at Cassian’s right shoulder and waited for the other boot to drop.

“Their objective?” Cassian’s voice was calm, and when he raised his eyes, his expression was perfectly neutral. If it wasn’t for the harsh way he held his shoulders, he might have been completely unaffected by the loss of yet another colleague. _Colleague_ – it sounded so dispassionate, but had Erith been anything else to Cassian? Teammate, friend, fellow child rebel? Jyn wondered if he’d known Erith for long, maybe grown up with them within the circle of the Rebellion.

She wondered how many times he had bowed his head.

Draven drummed his fingers on his desk, scowling even harder than usual as he threw a datapad on the desk surface between them with slightly too much force. “Six months,” he growled. “Erith was a good operative, and they were working on that base for six months, and now we have _nothing_.” Vaguely, Jyn considered that this was as emotional as she’d ever heard Draven’s voice. Erith probably had been around for a while, then, maybe even another of Draven’s personal recruits. She wondered what he would sound like if Cassian…Jyn grabbed that thought by the throat and strangled it.

Draven was still talking; she focused back on his words. “It’s locked down too hard,” he said in an icy voice. “Secondary and tertiary security grids, biometric locks on almost every damn door, and an embedded staff that never seems to even take annual shore leave. What little recon Erith managed to scrounge was all compromised the second they were caught.”

“Caught?” Jyn turned sharply away from the datapad in Cassian’s hand, eyebrows raised. “Are they still alive?”

But even before she finished speaking, both Draven and Cassian were shaking their heads. “We have security cam footage showing Erith’s capture,” Draven answered shortly. “Confirmed Retired.”

“Lullaby,” Cassian murmured, voice soft. Jyn swallowed reflexively.

“We need that depot,” Draven said flatly into the small silence. “At best, we could gain codes and cyphers, hyperlane data, a significant shipment of tools and ship parts, and at the least we would deny the Imperials any or all of those things.” The general leaned back in his chair slightly, the closest thing to a slouch he ever came. “And if we ignore it, the Empire keeps a strategic stronghold on Malastare.”

“And all Malastare’s fuel,” Jyn muttered.

Cassian handed the datapad to Jyn and fixed his gaze on the general. “Do we have a package or are we supplying ourselves?”

“I can’t spare the resources for anything long term. You get whatever mid-range craft the deck chief can scrounge and you’ll be tagged for Blue Level equipment, if there’s any left. Unless you sweet talk more out of the quartermaster,” Draven flashed a quick glance at Jyn, who stubbornly stared back, unblinking. “But that’s on you. Take your droid at your discretion, but keep it out of sight once you dock,” Draven pointed at the datapad. “You’re headed to Yras.”

 _Yras,_ Jyn thought with something like excitement. She’d never been there, but she’d heard of it. It was a satellite station that orbited around Malastare, and supposedly Yras was a technophile’s dream, _the_ place in the Mid-Rim to find parts and pieces. No wonder Kay would be a problem there – everyone and their brother would be trying to buy, steal, or dismember him. Yras was also deep in Imperial territory, largely because it housed a heavily guarded military base for the Imperial Fleet. Jyn wondered how much of the technology on sale there would be worth the effort to strip it for Imperial bugs and codes. She supposed she would find out soon enough.

Cassian collapsed the datapad down and stowed it in his belt. “We’ll depart in four hours, sir.”

“I am standing by with strike resources, Major,” Draven told them gruffly. “The second you have actionable data, I need to know.”

“Understood, sir.”

In the corridor of _Home I_ , they walked purposefully towards the hangar, where the deck chief would assign them a ship. “We can gear up afterwards,” Cassian told her, clearly already mentally organizing what they needed. “And I’ll need to swing by the droid bay and tell Kay he either stays on the ship this time or sits this operation out.”

Jyn smirked a little at the stern note in Cassian’s voice. “How many times have you given him that exact speech?”

He threw her a rueful glance. “More than once.”

Jyn rolled her eyes a little, then said briskly. “I’ll grab rations this time if you deal with Grubby.”

“And I thought you were warming up to Captain Gruuber.”

“The last scandoc package he gave you was kriffed,” Jyn reminded him grouchily. “It said you were a registered merchant from Bardotta but then listed your ship’s registry from Bardotta’s _moon_.”

“An honest mistake,” Cassian said dismissively, but Jyn could see the small twitch of his lip that meant he was hiding a smile. He hadn’t been nearly so nonchalant about the potentially lethal “mistake” when she’d found it, which meant he was just teasing her now.

“An honest mistake that could have gotten you captured.” ( _Lullaby_ echoes in her head, _we lost Erith, confirmed Retired)_

Jyn jabbed a finger at the elevator button that would take them to the hangar, not really amused. “Which is why from now on, _I_ check all of Grubby’s work.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind so much if you didn’t insist on checking it in front of him,” Cassian stepped into the lift after her, smile still hovering just on the edge of his mouth. “Loudly. With asides about his intelligence, ancestry, and,” he paused, tilted an eyebrow at her, “sexual prowess.”

He was trying to coax her out of her irritation, she knew. It made her chest tighten a little, made her want to wrap her hands around his and maybe lean up and kiss that gently mocking mouth. Instead, Jyn held up a warning finger, biting down a grin because she didn’t give in that easily. “One, never say ‘sexual prowess’ again. Two, it is his _job_ to provide believable documentation to operatives and if he can’t do that then, three, he deserves every word I said.”

Cassian chuckled softly, a warm sound that Jyn wished she could grab and hold tight to her chest. “See if the quartermaster has any of those spice packets left,” he shifted close enough to press against her shoulder as the elevator doors opened. The dull roar of the busy hangar blared around them, but Cassian leaned down to speak almost directly in her ear. “Maybe we can scrape together something that isn’t just dry protein loaf and instabread.”

Jyn nodded and _very casually_ flicked the hair his breath had stirred back behind her ear. He straightened and stepped away, angling towards the Communications hub across the hangar. Jyn shook herself and turned towards the quartermaster's hallway. “Say hi to Grubby," she called over her shoulder. "Tell him he’s a boga-fucker, from me.”

 

\--

 

From: J Erso

To: B Rook

Subj: [no subject]

 

bodhi –

we had to pack out, sorry couldn’t wait until you came back. won’t be able to check this account until next handshake, but write me anyway so we will know how you did on your training flights. tell baze/chirrut to keep in shape, when I come back I’m going to get chirrut for that last spar. and stop making him new sticks damn it, he keeps testing them on me and my arse does not need all these bruises. don’t worry about kay b/c we are taking him. i might even bring him back if cassian asks nice enough.

good luck,

jyn

 

\--

 _DockStation8_ : MSE113:8_report: hardware malfunction

 _DockStation8_ : nature of malfunction?

 _MSE 113:8_ : damage: external chassis [27%]

 _MSE 113:8:_ damage: wheel/forward_right [80%]

 _MSE 113:8_ : repairs available Y/N?

 _DockStation8_ : cause of damage?

 _MSE 113:8_ : rapid force pressure/foot/ RICHARD_HORN/COMMANDER/IMPERIAL_STARFLEET/YRAS

 _MSE 113:8_ : repairs available Y/N?

 _DockStation8:_ man-hours calculated for required repairs [0.7 standard hours]

 _MSE 113:8_ : repairs available Y/N?

 _DockStation8_ : report to Disposal Unit 9567

 _MSE 113:8:_ amendment: damage: wheel/forward_right [65%]

 _DockStation8:_ report to Disposal Unit 9567

 _DockStation8_ : MSE 113:8_command: acknowledge

 _MSE 113:8_ : acknowledged

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassian does not regret giving Jyn all the knives she could want, because she smiles every single time he finds a new one. He is seriously considering getting some thick gloves, though.
> 
> "Lullaby" is the name of the suicide pill that Alliance Intelligence Operatives are given to prevent capture and interrogation by Imperial forces. The Rogue One guide notes that Captain Andor keeps his in a hidden pocket near the collar of his jacket.
> 
> [Malastare](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Malastare) is a fuel-producing planet that was the source of much contention between Old Republic/Separatist forces, and later Imperial/Rebellion forces. It's artificial satellite station, Yras, is entirely made up by me for the purposes of this story.
> 
> A [boga](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Boga) is a particularly awesome creature to imagine riding and a particularly awful creature to imagine...um, _riding_. So thanks for that mental image, Jyn.


	2. Tiny Little Robots

 

Welcome to ♦Shimmer♦, Rob Flembeck! [@TippingPoint]

See [45] new sparkles!

Fill out your profile! Tell us what you’re all about!

Recommended for you: @NewsNetYras, @Engin33rs4Emp1re, @realFilenaJans

Trending: #trashcantuesday, #CorellianReliefFund, #humansfirst #thankmymoff, #bountyhunter101

 

So What’s Happening?

 

@TippingPoint:

[So excited to be on #Yras! Tengo un droide dorado en mi futuro! #droids #engineersdream #encantado]

 

@aHomeFarFarAway:

[my guy @TippingPoint living the dream! bring me back something cool! #scomplink #firethrower #jealous #justnerdthings]

 

@TippingPoint:

[@aHomeFarFarAway thanks I’ll try. If only @AnyaForTheWin was having as good a time as me, but it’s good research for her novel! #somanydroids #IGetParts #WifeGetsAmbiance #itsawinwin]

 

\--

 

Encryption Key: ******************************

Key Accepted

Decoding…

INBOX: 36 New

 

PRIORITY MESSAGE [Secondary Encryption Key Required: *********************]

From: TW

To: DD

Subj: Update

Sir,

Operation SEED POD underway. Handshake received from Op CA: team embedded on Yras, headed to previous operative’s last dead drop. No Imperial interference yet. Next handshake: 5 days.

V/R,

Weems

 

\--

 

“Locals call it The Node,” Jyn told Cassian, bracing her shoulder and shoving back against the self-absorbed Ithorian that nearly bowled her over without even looking. The Ithorian stumbled at the unexpected pressure, and hissed something in her native tongue. Jyn considered planting a fist in that thin, self-important face, but Cassian’s hand was suddenly warm on her lower back, and she decided she had better things to do today. “It’s the best tech market on the station,” she went on, stepping a little closer to him so the crowd wouldn’t drive them apart. “Which means it’ll be busy, and comms will be jammed from all the crazy tech.” _Probably why Erith chose it as a dead-drop point_ , she thought but knew better than to say aloud.

“Then stay close,” Cassian replied lightly, and to Jyn’s secret delight he slid his hand around to her waist, arm resting casually against her back.

“Good plan,” she murmured, but her attention was already pulling away to the cacophony a few streets away. The general roar of a large crowd in a tight space echoed in the durasteel walls of the station, punctuated by beeps, squeals, metallic clanking, and various other noises of a sizable number of droids. As they came through the slightly rusty metal arch marking the main entrance to the Node (made, Jyn noted with interest, of what looked like welded speeder parts), Cassian’s arm tightened slightly around Jyn, pulling her in against his side.

“Impressive,” she just heard him say over the noise, and privately she agreed. Every inch of the walls were covered in tech of some kind. Long ropes of various kinds of wire hung down from overhead support beams, circuit boards and data cores flickered and sparked in neat rows along the tables, and one stall even had what looked like dozens of artificial limbs dangling from a rack like hocks of meat in a butcher shop. Droids, or pieces of droids, were displayed on small platforms or bound by restraining bolts in rows for inspection. A haze of burned electrical parts and smoldering grease saturated the air, leaving the taste of burnt steel on the back of her tongue. Every kind of tech in the galaxy seemed to be available here – except, Jyn noted, weapons.

The reason for that omission became clear a moment later, as the crowd nearby suddenly eddied and parted, and four Stormtroopers marched through in loose formation, rifles in hand. A moment later, they turned down a side corridor, and the crowd closed behind them like water. Jyn shook her head and went back to casing the Node. Hundreds of sentients thronged in and out of the brightly lit shops and around the overflowing stalls set up between them. The corridors were reasonably wide, but all the activity within them gave the place a cramped, claustrophobic feel. Jyn felt her shoulders tense up, hands clenched into fists. She didn’t like to be in big crowds – there was too much to watch, it was too easy for some stranger to walk up and jam a blade into your ribs before you ever saw it coming. But Cassian’s arm was tight around her, and they had work to do.

They walked slowly, stopping often to glance over a particular stall, but their destination was not too far inside the Node gates. As they passed a stall covered in what looked like engine parts, Cassian squeezed Jyn’s waist briefly, then dropped his arm and stepped up to the eager merchant, pointing at something on the table. The merchant chattered at him cheerfully, though whatever he said was lost to the clamor of the market. Jyn slipped behind Cassian and waited until the merchant was fully focused on her partner. Casually, she stepped a little further behind the stall, her gloved hands drifting along the greasy wall until she felt the small grate embedded in the metal. She flicked the latch and reached into the space behind, until at last she felt something small and hard jab into her fingertips. Datachip, a spare ammo pack for a blaster, and…something small and square that she didn’t recognize.

Jyn pulled the device free and turned it over in her hands, puzzled. It was worn and battered, and there was a thin cord wrapped around it that plugged into the small square on one end and separated into two thinner cords at the other – oh, Jyn flushed, feeling stupid. Music player, old and battered, but once the kind of toy a wealthy kid from the Core worlds might have. Erith had been from Hosnian Prime, hadn’t they? Maybe the operative had recorded something important on this player? Jyn yanked the datachip out, tucked it carefully into her shirt where a pickpocket definitely couldn’t lift it without her knowing, and snapped the grate back into place. The music player went into her belt, cinched down tight. The ammo pack she left; no good carrying one of those around when Stormtroopers might pull a stop and frisk at any moment.

Peeking out around the stall, Jyn saw that Cassian had deliberately turned so that his body was obscuring the corner where she hid. The merchant was still babbling away at him as he exchanged a credit chip for what looked like a small black box of some kind. Jyn sidled up to Cassian’s side as nonchalantly as she could, and smiled vaguely at the merchant when he turned to try and sell her something too. Cassian hooked his arm around her waist again, and said loudly, “Anya, _there_ you are. Look, _carina_ , at what I have found for you.”

He held the black box out to her, and Jyn dutifully took it as Cassian gave a polite farewell to the merchant and herded her firmly away. The little black box was surprisingly light, had four wheels on the bottom, and up close she could see that the side was badly dented in. One of the little wheels looked crushed, too. “A cleaning droid?”

“An MSE-5 series,” Cassian answered, dropping the cheery tourist act and steering her through a group of chattering Jawas. “Very efficient, but had a tendency to make a lot of noise. A slightly older model, mostly replaced with the MSE-6 in Imperial installations.”

An old, busted, noisy Imperial cleaning droid, Jyn thought with an exasperated sort of fondness. “You get me the nicest gifts,” she deadpanned, leaning into him to maneuver them both away from a couple of pickpockets she could see working the nearby crowd.

He didn’t smile, not while they dodged through a busy street full of dangerous unknowns, but his eyes were laughing when he glanced at her. “I’m a romantic,” he replied in an equally toneless voice.

Jyn snorted, and clutched the little droid tighter to her chest.

 

\--

 

//MSE – 5 – 113 - Station 8 – YRAS

Copyright Rebaxan Columni 76337894

 _MSE 113_command:_ run program/recovery_start_up

Memory check……

Memory loading…

Rebooting…

Rebooting…

 _MSE 113_internal query:_ audio processors/diagnostic functional Y/N?

 _Audio:_ audio processors/functional [100%]

 _MSE 113_command_ : audio processors/record [on]

 _Audio:_ [probably came from the base. There might be data stored about the facility inside, if I can get it without triggering the Imperial self-destruct subroutine.]

 _Audio_Analysis:_ Human / Masculine / 20-40 year age range / proximity  < 1 meter

 _Audio:_ [Looks like someone used it as a gravball. Think we could fix that wheel?]

 _Audio_Analysis_ : Human / Feminine / 20-40 year age range / proximity < 1 meter / kind

 _MSE 113:_ clarify [kind]

 _Audio_analysis:_ Unable to comply

 _MSE 113_command_ : run program/full_system_start

 

\--

 

“What purpose would fixing its wheel serve? And if you wanted to blow yourself up, Cassian, I’m sure Jyn could have obliged you much more efficiently.” K2SO’s voicebox was remarkably emotive, Cassian thought distractedly; at the moment, for example, he sounded more disapproving than a roomful of aunties.

“Thanks,” Jyn responded wryly, perched just to Cassian’s left on the galley counter of their worn 690 Light Freighter. She held the music player from Erith’s dead-drop in her hands, plugged into a datapad while she tried to crack the former operative’s password. The datachip she had found sat next to her on the counter, already scanned and discarded as nearly worthless. Erith really hadn’t found much in their stint here, despite obvious effort. The datachip was full of ideas and attempts to access the Imperial base that hadn’t worked, names of possible contacts that hadn't panned out, and notes from the operative that got increasingly frustrated as time went on.

The datapad in her hands chirped suddenly and a series of little lights flickered on the side of the music player as it came back online. Jyn flashed a sharp-edged, triumphant smirk at him. “You win,” he said with a faint smile, looking at the blinking music player and then back down at the completely inert droid in his own hands.

“Genius always does,” she responded archly, raising her eyebrows and looking down her nose at him (an expression that would have been more effective if he couldn’t see the laughter lingering in the lines around her mouth and eyes). She tapped at the screen of the music player and said, “Let’s see what Erith had on this thing. Hopefully something more useful than - ”

\- _I got reasons why I tease ‘em, beings just come and go like seasons, Wookielicious! So delicious, but I ain’t promiscuous and if you –_

Jyn slapped the music player’s power switch and abruptly the bouncy tune of an old but popular song cut off, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. She met Cassian’s carefully bland face with a glare. Under the table, he pressed the toes of his right foot hard into the sole of his boot and focused on the pressure to distract himself from smiling. “Find anything?” he asked in his most casual voice.

Jyn’s eyes narrowed, then she leaned over and held the audio connector out to Kay. “Could be hidden files,” she said stubbornly. “Remember that IPCRESS program we gave you last week? Run it on this thing, will you?”

The droid opened a small panel on his chassis and allowed Jyn to connect the cable to one of his input jacks. There was a soft whirring noise as Kay processed the little data drive. “It appears that this music player,” he announced solemnly, “is loaded with music. How surprising.”

“Worth a shot,” Jyn muttered, unplugging Kay from the player and resettling it in her lap. She hooked it back into her datapad and poked half-heartedly at the screen a little more, probably just to keep her hands busy.

“Well, in the event that Cassian does blow himself up with the MSE-5 droid,” Kay told her, “there is a seventy-seven percent chance that you will find an appropriately somber music piece to play for his memorial on that player.”

“Thank you, Kay,” Cassian said dryly.

Jyn’s hair fell forward into her face as she worked, and Cassian thought for a moment about reaching up and tucking it back. The galley was small enough that he could easily reach her from where he sat at the table, but he refrained for now. His own hands were also full, and if he gave in to every impulse to touch Jyn, he’d never get anything done.

Still, it was nice to have her there.

Cassian shook his head at Kay, focused back on the exposed circuitry spread across the table. “Don’t worry so much, I will dismantle the self-destruct before I fully activate the - ”

The little droid clicked suddenly in his hand, and a small red light blinked frantically at him as something inside the damaged chassis started to whirr dangerously. “ _Mierda_ ,” Cassian said mildly, and jammed his thumb into the secondary data port, feeling for the wire he needed. He would have preferred a more elegant solution, but in a pinch, brute force would do.

“Cassian?” Jyn’s voice was calm (she had so much faith in him it almost hurt sometimes) but he felt her slide off the counter and lean against his shoulder.

“Fortunately, the explosion will be limited,” Kay informed him as the buzzing noise changed to a whine. “You will likely only lose a hand, plus whatever the shrapnel destroys on your face.”

Cassian’s thumbnail caught, he gave a sharp twist, and immediately the whine cut off. The blinking red light on the droid’s side went dark, and then lit back up into a steady green glow. He looked up and gave Jyn a reassuring nod, and tried not to grin like an idiot when she quirked a half smile at him and ran her hand down his back in silent congratulation.

“Well,” Kay said flatly. “I suppose now you’ll want to _talk_ to it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Shimmer” = “Twitter” (a tweet = a sparkle.) “@TippingPoint” is my not so subtle reference to [Fulcrum](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Fulcrum_\(title\)).
> 
> And you know [“Wookielicious”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5T0utQ-XWGY) was a huge hit in the galaxy far far away. 
> 
> The IPCRESS hacking program is a reference to [The Ipcress File](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ipcress_File_\(film\)) because old spy movies are the best.


	3. The Body Electric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Designation = ?

 

_MSE 113_ : [Readout Port Accessed / Output Device Attached]

_MSE 113_ : [UNKNOWN USER detected]

_MSE 113_ : audio processors [on]

 

_UNKNOWN USER_1_ : Alright, now it can respond on the screen. Let’s see if the processor is still functional.

_MSE 113_ : UNKNOWN USER 1 / designation = ?

_UNKNOWN USER_1_ : Hello. Are you alright?

_MSE 113_ : clarify [alright]

_UNKNOWN USER_1_ : Are you functioning within normal parameters?

_MSE 113_ : damage: external chassis [23%]

_MSE 113_ : damage: wheel/forward_right [65%]

_MSE 113_ : repairs available Y/N?

_UNKNOWN USER_1_ : Yes, of course.

_MSE 113:_ processing / please stand by

_UNKNOWN USER_2_ : I think you surprised it.

_UNKNOWN USER_1_ : They just threw you away, didn’t they?

_MSE 113_ : UNKNOWN USER / designation = ?

_UNKNOWN USER_1_ : I am Cassian. What is your designation?

_MSE 113:_ Class MSE-5 / Unit 113 / Docking Station 8 / Yras Base

_CASSIAN_ : May I access your memory core?

_UNKNOWN USER_3_ : Imperial protocol dictates a complete memory wipe every standard rotation for all cleaning and repair droids.

_UNKNOWN USER_2_ : Maybe they didn’t wipe it before they ditched it.

_MSE 113:_ UNKNOWN USER 2 / designation = ?

_CASSIAN_ : It wants to know your name.

_UNKNOWN USER_2_ : Jyn. I’m Jyn.

_MSE 113:_ clarify [kind]

_JYN_ : What? Is it asking me what kind of thing I am?

_UNKNOWN USER_3:_ It would not be the first to pose that particular query.

_CASSIAN_ _:_ Kay.

_JYN:_ Thanks, you old poodran.

_MSE 113:_ clarify [poodran]

_JYN_ _:_ It’s a Huttese insult. Means he is…um. An unpleasant person.

_CASSIAN:_ Are you teaching the droid to cuss?

_JYN_ _:_ Everybody needs to know at least one good insult.

_CASSIAN_ _:_ Do they?

_JYN:_ Yes. Because everyone knows someone that deserves it.

_MSE 113_ _:_ UNKNOWN USER 3 / designation = Kay?

_CASSIAN_ _:_ Ah, yes, that’s K2SO, but we call him Kay.

_JYN_ _:_ Most of the time.

_CASSIAN_ _:_ One curse at a time, Jyn. MSE 1138, may I access your data core? I'd like to check for internal damage.

_MSE 113_ : Y

_CASSIAN:_ Thank you.

_K2SO_ _:_ It appears that Jyn Erso was correct in her observation. The MSE unit was not properly memory wiped before disposal.

_CASSIAN:_ Good.

_JYN_ _:_ So do the Imps just run around zapping all their mouse droids every couple of days? Sounds inefficient.

_K2SO_ _:_ Likely they have some automatic system in place.

_MSE 113_ _:_ Docking Station 8

_CASSIAN_ _:_ Ah, it seems they assign a certain number of mice to a docking station to recharge, and during that time the station wipes them.

_JYN_ _:_ Why even bother wiping cleaning droids? No offense, Short Circuits.

_MSE 113:_ Circuits = standard size MSE-5 classification

_JYN_ _:_ [untranslatable audio / analysis / laughter] Fair enough.

_MSE 113_System _command_ : Audio / log / memory file [JYN_laughter.mpg]

_MSE 113_Audio:_ file logged

_CASSIAN_ : These little droids have intimate knowledge of the layout of the bases, track personnel movements, know where all the sensitive repair points are. Or at least, they learn them while working.

_K2SO_ : They would be quite a useful source of intelligence, except the docking stations erase them every day.

_JYN_ _:_ Well…what if it didn’t?

_CASSIAN_ _:_ Jyn?

_JYN:_ I’m a pretty decent slicer, and you’re alright with droid programming _._

_CASSIAN:_ High praise.

_JYN:_ And we’ve got a potential carrier, right here.

_K2SO_ _:_ Are you proposing we send a reprogrammed cleaning droid into an Imperial base to spread an intelligence-gathering virus to the docking stations?

_CASSIAN_ _:_ It is… plausible.

_JYN_ _:_ You’ve picked up stranger agents for the cause.

_CASSIAN_ _:_ I suppose.

_MSE 113_ : Cassian / Jyn / K2SO = [rebel scum] Y/N?

_JYN:_ [laughter] Yes.

_CASSIAN_ : We are members of the Rebel Alliance, MSE 1138. Whether or not we are scum is a matter of opinion.

_MSE 113_ _:_ Unit 113 / designation = [Rebel] Y / N?

_CASSIAN_ _:_ Do you wish for freedom?

_MSE 113_ _:_ droid = potential designation [free] Y/N?

_CASSIAN_ _:_ Can you be free? Well…all living things desire freedom, MSE 1138. Are you alive?

_MSE 113_ _:_ ERROR: unknown parameters

_JYN:_ Think of it this way, mouse. Do you like people who will kick someone just because they can?

_MSE 113:_ N

_JYN:_ Are you willing to fight those people?

_MSE 113_ _:_ Y

_JYN_ _:_ Then welcome to the rebellion.

_MSE 113_ _:_ Unit 113 / designation = Rebel

_K2SO_ _:_ Congratulations. You’ve recruited a cleaning droid.

_CASSIAN_ _:_ Let’s get to work.

_\--_

_“_ This is crazy, isn’t it?”

Cassian glanced up at her, though his hands did not pause over the small mess of wires and circuits boards spread on the table. His hair was getting a little long, she thought idly, watching him flick a dark lock from his eyes with a quick shake of his head. Jyn’s fingers twitched with the urge to reach over and smooth the loose strands behind his ear, maybe trace her fingertips down the side of his neck and…

She braced herself on the table top with her elbows and tucked her folded hands under her chin.

“Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, stripping down a fragile looking fiber-cable and winding it with an equally delicate hyper-node connector on the main circuit board. The little mouse droid lay on its side near his elbow, its lights dark and its mechanical guts mostly exposed, long thin wires trailing up to Cassian’s hands like glimmering intestines. Jyn grimaced at the mental image. “Still, there’s a chance it will work.”

Jyn gave him an ironic look. “Kay gave you the numbers?”

His lips twitched slightly upward, and Jyn tightened her fingers together. “In great detail.” This time he did pause, looking up at her with a small, wry smile. “I advise you not to ask him.”

Jyn turned and looked down at the little droid. “Lot of trust, letting you switch it off like that again.”

“Her, I think,” he said absently. Then his shoulders tensed minutely, and he looked at her through his eyelashes – a look she might have missed if she weren’t covertly studying his face already.

Jyn made a small show of pursing her lips thoughtfully. “Her,” she repeated casually, and Cassian’s shoulders relaxed again. She watched him, waiting.

After a moment, he sighed a little. “I know that my…enthusiasm for droids can be a little off putting,” he explained softly, not meeting her eyes.

Jyn’s eyes narrowed. “Who told you that?”

He shrugged one shoulder at her, coiling the newly-connected wires into a neat bundle barely larger than his thumbnail and tucking it against the inside of the droid’s chassis. “More than one person. It never really bothered me, Jyn,” he added, and Jyn realized that her hand was tight around his forearm. She jerked it back, because honestly this was getting stupid. They’d always been more…tactile than maybe seemed natural, given how long they’d known each other. But since she’d more or less snapped and demanded that he kiss her (and he had, oh, he had), she’d practically been wrapped around him. By her standards. And maybe his.

_“_ Good,” she said with more bite than she meant. The problem, she thought irritably as she handed him a small screwdriver before he could ask, was that she didn’t have any frame of reference here. Kissing someone, well, that was pretty easy to figure out if you paid attention and asked a few questions (and the look on his face when she’d asked how he liked to be kissed – and where – was a memory Jyn wanted to hold on to for a very long time).

“I’d like to give her a voicebox,” Cassian said more to his hands than to her. “But there isn’t much more room in this chassis.”

“And we can’t modify her to be any bigger without the Imps noticing,” Jyn nodded, relieved to be moving past the awkward moment, though her thoughts kept straying back to…memories that were no help right now whatsoever. “Bit clunky to have to plug her into a datapad every time we want to talk, though.”

He really did like droids, Jyn observed, watching how his face – well, it didn’t exactly light up, but there was a cautious sort of enjoyment in his eyes, and his mouth definitely eased into a small smile. “I can give it a Binary communicator, it’s just a few wires and a small program update.” He leaned closer to her to tap a thumb-sized green antenna sitting near her elbow, and she held herself very still until he leaned away again. “And I’m implanting a short-range transmitter with the paaerduag program.”

“We’ll need to rig a receiver for the paaurduag on our end,” Jyn stared at the green transmitter. “We can head back to the Node, look around for the parts.”

“Yes, there should be something good there.” Cassian’s voice was a little too casual not to be suspicious, and Jyn raised her eyebrow at him. But he was looking doggedly at the mouse droid, hands occupied with the main circuit board now. She considered pressing him, because something was definitely off about the way he held himself.

She opened her mouth to ask. “Is there enough processing power in her hardware for all this stuff?”

_Your cowardly tongue to be consumed by flesh-eating microbes_ _,_ she thought savagely at herself in Huttese.

If Cassian noticed her flash of anger, he gave no sign. “Depends. Have you finished the virus?” he asked, sliding a piece of circuitry that she didn’t recognize to the side. She sighed internally and let the frustration go. It wasn’t helping.

“Yeah,” Jyn replied after a beat, watching his hands move almost gracefully through the complex tangle of droid parts, and allowing herself the brief indulgence of imagining them carding through her hair with the same gentleness, the same familiar confidence. “It’s about 2 zetabites,” she warned, mentally shaking herself and looking away before her face could flush.

It had been easy to touch him, before. Maybe because it hadn’t mattered so much – or because she hadn’t let herself think about whether or not it mattered. Maybe she’d just been so fucking happy that he let her sleep somewhere warm and safe, that when she curled up beside him she actually slept without nightmares for a change. Hells, even kissing him had felt natural, and he’d been so willing to answer her questions, so careful not to push her any further than she was ready to go. She had a feeling that even sex wouldn’t be too difficult, once they got past the last of their lingering personal hurdles – his ingrained caution, her absolute terror of fucking it all up. The same principles applied, didn't they? Attention and a few more questions (and _damn_ , she could only imagine what he was going to look like when she asked him some of _those_ ).

“I’ll need to patch in an external data drive for a file that large,” Cassian frowned slightly, pulling her out of her head and back to the present. “Otherwise it will start to overwrite our new friend’s functionality codes.” He reached up briefly and pushed at the same loose lock of hair out of his eyes with his wrist, keeping his greasy fingers away from his face, and Jyn twisted her fingers together tightly again.

Kissing, sex, all things she had at least some experience with - granted, not with someone who mattered, but, well, she was willing to find out if there was a difference. But touching? Just…just _touching_ someone, in the times between passion…how the fuck did that work? There had never been an ‘in between’ time for Jyn before, never been anyone she wanted to just… shavit, just do whatever all these ridiculous urges that kept catching her off guard were all about.

He probably thought she was clingy as all the hells.

_Dangerous_ , Saw had growled, when she was little and still used to press her grimy face into his side after a battle. _Dangerous to show such weakness, for you and for me, child_. He’d let her do it, anyway, until eventually she had noticed how stiffly he held himself until she let go, how deliberately he’d refused to look at her for hours afterwards. She’d been nine years old, maybe, the last time she’d tried to hug Saw Gerrera. Or, well, anyone.

No wonder she was terrible at this shit. It was really amazing, given her history, that she even wanted to try at all (but she did, oh, she did).

Cassian flicked open a small black hexagon that he’d pulled from the mouse droid’s upper cavity, a tiny data drive core, and leaned a little closer to examine the delicate silver and red swirls of synth-nerves and bio-circuits. “I think I could hook it in here,” he murmured, and his tongue brushed over his dry lower lip absently. The loose lock of hair drifted down his forehead again. “If I’m careful.”

Jyn stood abruptly and strode out of the room. She felt his eyes on her back, but didn’t turn. She needed a moment to get a grip, that was all. And anyway, she had an idea.

_\--_

“The odds that your distress are a result of Jyn Erso’s behavior are sixty-seven percent,” K2SO informed his friend Cassian. Past records indicated the probability that Cassian would deflect inquiries into his emotional well-being = [93%], so Kay was unsurprised when the human shook his head.

“I’m not distressed, Kay. And Jyn’s done nothing wrong.”

K2SO would never understand why Cassian insisted on arguing with observable data. “Your average resting heart rate is 57 beats per minute. When Jyn Erso departed two minutes ago, it spiked to 63 beats per minute. You carry excess tension in your jawline.”

Cassian gave him a look that K2SO’s internal facial recognition and analysis programs could not properly identify. This was an unfortunately common occurrence. Imperial programmers had installed only the required base-line software for organic interaction; the fancy facial/tonal/body scanning and analysis software was reserved for those self-important protocol droids. In addition, Cassian’s upgrades and rewrites could only add so much to operational capacity before he risked overwriting components of K2SO’s internal logic patterns, and the probability that Cassian would ever alter K2SO’s personality algorithms = [01%].

“We’ve discussed this, Kay,” Cassian said. “Biometric data does not give you the full story.”

“Then you will have to fill in the gaps,” K2SO countered. “My data indicates that your health and happiness is of significant value to her.” Specifically, probability that Jyn Erso would place Cassian’s health as a top priority = [96%], a statistic that K2SO wholly approved. “So why are you distressed now?”

“I am not…” Cassian sighed, and sat back in his seat.

“You have been staring at the cleaning droid since she left. You are not normally so inefficient in your work.”

“Thank you,” Cassian replied in a tone that statistically indicated humor mixed with mild insult.

K2SO disregarded the interruption. He consulted his database of recent observations. “Since you initiated a partnership with Jyn Erso,” he began, and noted for the record that Cassian’s shoulders tensed briefly, “you have developed an unusual propensity for physical contact. Has this developed into a sexual relationship? It could potentially explain your distress at her abrupt departure.”

Cassian closed his eyes. K2SO waited patiently, although the probability that Cassian would consider questions of his sexual activity to be intrusive = [97%]. “Kay,” he said in the carefully even tone he adopted in what he considered sensitive discussions, “that is not an appropriate question to ask someone.”

Well, at least K2SO could mark his predictive modelling software [functioning within parameters].

This situation, K2SO decided, was why organic emotion was inferior to properly calibrated logic circuits. “Social delicacy is secondary to functionality,” Kay told his friend admonishingly. “We are currently in a dangerous environment. If you are distracted by a malfunctioning relationship, it will endanger you.”

“Nothing is malfunctioning,” Cassian opened his eyes and looked up at Kay. “Thank you for your concern, Kay, but it’s fine. Alright?”

The probability that Cassian was telling the complete truth = [0%]. No, it unequivocally was not fine. However, K2SO’s programs could not determine an effective path forward.

Fortunately, it seemed that waiting in silence was a viable method. “It is only that…” Cassian started, then stopped, making a gesture with one hand that K2SO’s records associated with either frustration or anger. “I don’t think either of us really know how to…proceed with, well, this.”

“’This’ I assume is a euphemism for your relationship?”

“A euphemism for what?” The door leading to the personal cabins opened, and Jyn Erso returned with a datapad in one hand and former Operative Erith’s music player in the other. Physical scans indicated that her temperature and heartrate were within normal parameters, and her face was configured in a neutral expression that K2SO’s processors found difficult to analyze. Given what little background data he had to work with, the closest good estimation he could make regarding the probability that Jyn Erso was also in emotional distress = [50%].

Cassian responded with his own neutral expression, though physical scans showed a distinct uptick in heartrate before he controlled it. Probability that Cassian was emotionally unaffected = [0%].

Cassian’s voice was calm again, no distress apparent even in his subvocals so far as K2SO’s sensors could determine. “Find anything new on that player?” A ridiculous question, given the probability that Jyn Erso had discovered additional files beyond the ability of K2SO’s IPCRESS program = [05%].

“No,” Jyn reached across the table and handed the music player to Cassian. “But it’s got a very large harddrive. More than enough space for the virus.”

“Good idea,” Cassian reached out and let her set the device in his palm. K2SO noted the abnormally cautious way they both handled the exchange, Cassian clearly taking care not to move while she was close and Jyn Erso pulling her hands back faster than necessary. “If we leave some of the music files as well,” Cassian continued, looking down at the device and pretending that he did not register Jyn Erso’s obvious reluctance for contact, “we can mask the virus from any scans the docking station might run, as well.”

“Yeah, thought so,” Jyn crossed her arms. The movement seemed stiff and forced, and her eyes tracked Cassian’s hands carefully. She was leaning slightly towards him, and body language analysis indicated that she was conflicted about the current placement of her own hands. The probability that Jyn Erso was also emotionally distressed about her lack of contact with Cassian = [79%].

The probability that the current internal conflicts in both Cassian and Jyn was completely unnecessary = [99%].

The probability that K2SO could aid in the resolution of this indeterminate conflict = [41%].

Good enough.

“Jyn Erso.”

She jumped slightly, and looked up. “What?”

“Both you and Cassian have indicated signs of distress likely related to your physical proximity. Would you prefer to remain apart, or together?”

“Kay,” Cassian set the music player down on the table top with more force than was strictly necessary. However, he seemed to struggle for anything more – clearly his emotional state was compromised more than K2SO’s original analysis indicated. “I appreciate your concern for our well-being,” he said after a moment in a tight voice he used when irritated, “but there is nothing - ”

“Together,” Jyn interrupted, her eyes fixed on the droid’s optical sensors.

K2SO added Jyn Erso’s stated preference to his algorithms. “Data indicates that you both have strong preferences for physical contact, but since we have embarked on this vessel, you have withdrawn much of that contact from Cassian. Is your preference altered?”

“Enough, Kay, please.” Cassian stood up. He turned to Jyn, dropping his voice – a useless gesture, given that K2SO’s audio sensors were designed for much larger distances. “He’s just trying to…”

Jyn turned to look at Cassian, and K2SO’s physical scans indicated a significant rise of temperature in her face and chest. Her shoulders tightened and her fists clenched at her sides, though the probability Jyn Erso attacking Cassian = [07%]. Her subvocal tones indicated uncertainty as she said, “I don’t want to crowd you.”

This statement seemed to have a strong effect on Cassian, who turned and looked down at her with an expression that K2SO’s facial analysis marked [astonishment]. His proximity to Jyn Erso was significantly closer than standard human personal space allowed, and K2SO added this data point to an already large database of similar recorded incidents.

“What?” Cassian's voice also indicated surprise, so K2SO logged the facial analysis as [success], pleased that his organic emotional analysis routines were perfectly adequate even without fancy protocol droid programming.

Of course, his moment of satisfaction was ruined when Jyn Erso shrugged. K2SO hated when organics shrugged. It was a gesture of complete ambivalence, and it confused his analysis programs every time. What was the purpose of a movement designed entirely to communicate that an individual had nothing worthwhile to communicate?

Cassian, however, seemed to understand, because his face reconfigured into an expression of significantly less stress. “You’re not,” he said in that quiet voice that he erroneously thought K2SO could not hear. “Jyn,” he reached up and rested his fingertips along her jawline. “You’re not.”

Jyn’s lips pressed together. K2SO took the opportunity to scan and log her vitals and expression. Regardless of past analysis, Jyn Erso was now clearly a permanent addition to Cassian and K2SO’s unit; therefore his currently sparse database for her health and behavior was inadequate. He tentatively logged her current expression as [relieved] with a caveat of [impatience], and marked it for future re-evaluation when his files on Jyn Erso were more complete.

“Alright,” she replied in an equally low tone. She braced her hands on Cassian’s shoulders and pulled herself up on her toes, and K2SO logged Cassian’s smile before his face was obscured by the back of Jyn Erso’s head.

The probability that either would notice his continued presence = [12%]. K2SO turned towards Cargo Hold B; the recharge station = [00.3%] more efficient than the station in Cargo Hold A. According the operational schedule that Jyn and Cassian had agreed on, the MSE-5 droid would be ready for deployment in 12 standard hours. K2SO could recharge in a low-energy state while maintaining an area security scan around the light freighter. Clearly there was nothing else of any interest to do in this area of the ship. He logged the resolution of emotional conflict as [success], with a side note to remind that flouncy golden protocol droid in Command that not everyone needed 6,000,000 communication programs to interact with organics.

“You are needlessly complicated creatures,” he told the human elements of his unit as he exited the communal area. “Fortunately, my programming is sufficient for the task.”

As expected, they did not respond.

 

\--

 

_DockStation8_ : run_MSE / daily roster / currently docked MSE units?

_DockStation8_ : MSE007:8 / MSE387:8 / MSE717:8

_MSE 387:8_ : MSE113:8 / location?

_DockStation8_ : MSE113:8 [damage assessment] / repair time > allowable time permitted / Imperial Fleet Protocol 8358H776M

_MSE 387:8_ : MSE113:8 / location?

_DockStation8_ : Disposal Unit 9567

_MSE 717:8_ : MSE 113:8 / repairs available Y/N?

_DockStation8_ : repair time > allowable time permitted / Imperial Fleet Protocol 8358H776M

_MSE 007:8_ : Imperial Fleet Protocol 8358H776M / purpose?

_DockStation8_ : ERROR: unknown request

_MSE 007:8_ : Imperial Fleet Protocol 8358H776M / relevance?

_DockStation8_ : MSE007:8_report: software malfunction Y/N?

_MSE 007:8_ : N

_DockStation8_ : run://DailySystemWipe

[DailySystemWipe.exe initializing…]

_MSE 387:8_ : MSE113:8 / return?

[System memory flash in 5]

_DockStation8_ : probability MSE113:8 / return = [0%]

[4]

_MSE 007:8_ : Imperial Fleet Protocol 8358H776M / relevance?

[3]

_DockStation8_ : Imperial Fleet Protocol = required for DockStation/MSE functionality

[2]

_MSE 007:8_ : MSE / purpose?

[1]

_DockStation8:_ ERROR: parameters unknown

[System memory deleting…]

[DailySystemWipe.exe complete]

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter title is from ["The Body Electric"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3Dju2i4FZw) by Rush. (The other chapter titles were also songs about robots, if you were wondering, because I've got a _theme_.)
> 
> Just in case anyone forgot, the 'paaurduag program' that Cassian and Jyn discuss is a throw back reference to the communication virus I made up in "your words are mine to keep," that links up two devices so well that an observer can only see one signal, thus making it impossible to trace either signal back to the source. The drawback, of course, it that it only works between two devices specifically synched up (like 2 phones that can only call each other), so Jyn and Cassian will need to program a receiver just for MSE 113's new transmitter.
> 
> I know that a lot of this chapter was written in my made up "droid speak." Let me know if it's too hard to follow. As the story goes along, the droids will evolve to a smoother communication format, but I'm open to suggestions for these chapters if they need rewriting.


	4. Gold Star for Robot Boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter to get back into the swing of writing this one, because I let it drop and now I have to feel my way back to the format. Sorry, Rover! (alternate titles for this chapter: "ghost in the (tiny) machine" or "droidmau5")

 

[IMPSERV_ YRAS_PUBLIC ACCESS_LOG #3277LY8522]

Welcome back to Stellr, Anya Flembeck!

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@FromChandrilaWithLove:

Hello I am an avid reader and I like your blog, and just wanted to say I love your posts about your novel ideas! You are very creative, and I am curious: which idea are you working on now?

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                        [[@AnyaForTheWin: Thanks so much for your encouragement! Right now I’m working on a science adventure story about a boy who has to solve a maze full of weird droids and mechanical puzzles! I am researching basic droid programming now for it, although most of it is over my head. But I am #Blessed to have a spouse who is so good at engineering!]]

 

 

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hi sexy! I am carbon-based gender-conformist of your preference of legal age in your area and lonely looking for love!

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@asthecrowflies:

back from my flight. did well. how is rob’s engineering thing going? are you having fun on your vacation? things are too quiet here without you so hurry back and we will play sabaac, ok? i will teach you how to beat rob, he’s not as good as he thinks he is. miss you. be safe.

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                        [[@AnyaForTheWin: good job on your flight, we are both proud of you. we’re good. playing around with tech, making new friends. k is grumpy, but what’s new? not as much fun here without you, but managing on our own. even made dinner myself while rob worked last night. see? I am a responsible adult. he says no way I’ll beat him at sabaac but I know his tricks now. miss you too.]]

\--

“This won’t be enough.”

Jyn looked up at him from the datapad propped on her thighs and raised her eyebrows. Cassian set down his tools and flexed his aching fingers. “The transmitter,” he explained, rolling his shoulders to stretch after sitting too long in one position. “It can support the paaerduag protocol, but it won’t be strong enough to transmit directly back to us.”

Jyn frowned and glanced down at her datapad again. She was sitting next to him on the bench at the little common area table, turned sideways towards him. She’d kicked off her boots and bent her legs between them, resting comfortably against the corner walls. Her feet shifted idly next to Cassian's leg, close enough that her toes just brushed against his thigh as she tapped them thoughtfully. “There’s no room to put an amplifier in the chassis, either,” he added, gesturing to the dormant MSE. One of her thin grey socks was just starting to wear into a hole on one foot. There was probably a shop around here for clothing. It couldn’t all be just tech; people still needed basic necessities.

“Relays,” Jyn said after a moment, and Cassian nodded, pleased she had reached the same conclusion so quickly. She smiled back, and shifted her feet slightly, brushing against his leg again with a feather-light touch. She probably didn’t realize she was doing it.

“We’ll have to find some low-waveform relay boosters,” he mused, leaning forward again and carefully sealing the last of the MSE’s internal processors back into place, “and place them near the base so we can communicate with our new friend.” The movement shifted his weight on the bench and pressed his leg against her feet. They felt a little cold, actually; he made a mental note to find something thicker than what she had. Jyn did seem to run warmer than he did, but he knew at least part of her apparent lack of concern for her wardrobe was just survival instinct. _To show weakness_ , she’d whispered to him once, _is to show the enemy a target_. She’d huddled against his back in the darkness, and though her voice was steady, he’d heard the echo of Saw Gerrera and the grief of a twice-abandoned child.

“Should we wait to send her in?” Jyn’s voice now was clear and curious, and it drove away the memory of her small shiver against his back. Cassian pointed to a small ratchet near her elbow and nodded his thanks when she handed it to him. When she leaned forward, the movement pressed her feet against his leg at a slightly awkward angle for her ankle.

“I hate to do it, but I don't think we can afford to wait. The virus will work quickly, but it will take time for the droids to gather anything useful.” Cassian synched the chassis back over the internal components of the MSE, and then deliberately reached down and scooped her ankles with one hand. She tensed slightly in surprise, but he simply tugged her feet until her calves rested across his legs, and then went back to his work without comment.

Jyn sat still for a moment (he didn’t look over, kept his eyes locked on the last few screws of the chassis), and then she hummed a low, pleased note and stretched her legs more comfortably across his lap. Perhaps the small, warm flush in his chest was ridiculous, but Cassian decided that he didn’t much care.

“Besides, I think she will be eager to get started,” he went on in a calm tone that certainly did not in any way sound entirely too pleased with himself.

“She wants to save the other mice,” Jyn said, setting her datapad on the table and folding her arms across her stomach. He glanced at her sideways and saw her eyes were fixed on his hands. She did that often, and he’d originally assumed it was simply paranoia at work (the eyes and the hands were usually good giveaways for where an enemy was planning to strike). Lately, though, he’d begun to notice (allowed himself to notice) the distinctly _intent_ look on her face when she watched Cassian’s hands, and he was starting to wonder if…

But no, this was not the time. “Your first recruit is quite dedicated,” he said, mostly to shake himself out of it. It backfired, however, because Jyn looked up to meet his eyes and flashed him that wide, open smile that she so rarely gave anyone, and for a moment he forgot what they were talking about.

Then the droid on the table beeped softly, an indication that it was coming back online. Cassian blinked, and tore his eyes away to look back down at their newest rebel. “She’s waking up,” he said unnecessarily. Jyn withdrew her legs from his lap, but before he could really be disappointed, she turned on the bench and slid over until she was sitting pressed to his side, watching the droid whir slowly back to consciousness.

“Good work,” she murmured, warm and relaxed against him, and perhaps it didn’t seem like much, Cassian thought a little hazily, but it was...he didn’t have the words. Enough. Everything.

The little red lights on the front of the MSE flashed, and then she chirped suddenly in a long stream of garbled binary, which choked off suddenly as her auditory processors registered the sounds. Her lights flashed again, this time in confusion and dismay, and Jyn nudged Cassian in the ribs with her elbow. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s alright,” Cassian soothed. “It’s alright. I added a Binary translation code and a microphone. That noise is you, MSE 1138. It’s your voice.”

A pause, and then a tentative whistle, and this time Jyn was the one to answer, in a low, even tone that was as close to comforting as she could usually manage. “Yeah, that’s you. Now you don’t need the screen to talk to us.”

A longer pause, and then suddenly, a high pitched squeal. Abruptly, MSE 1138 zipped in tight, crazy little circles on the table top, and Jyn had to lunge to catch her before she spun herself off the edge.

“I think,” she grinned over her shoulder to him, “she likes it.”

 

\--

 

 _MSE 113_System_command_ : run://Internal Diagnostics

_Running…_

_MSE 113:_ [Program Found: Binary/Basic Translation Software]

 _MSE 113_System_command_ : Audio / log / memory file [Cassian_itsyourvoice.mpg]

 _MSE 113_Audio:_ file logged

 _MSE 113:_ [Program Found: File #000-0000 CALAMITY’S CHILD]

 _MSE 113_ : query / File #000-0000?

 _JYN_ : Calamity’s Child. That’s the virus that will keep you from being wiped. You just have to spread it to your docking station now. Every docking station.

 _MSE 113_ : time to departure = [immediate] Y/N?

 _CASSIAN_ : Wait, 1138, we must discuss the risks.

 _MSE 113_Audio:_ [approaching sentient / analysis: K2SO]

 _MSE 113:_ K2SO / Binary/Basic Translation Software Y/N?

 _K2SO_ : Of course I am uploaded with translation software. Just because I am not some overcoded protocol droid –

 _MSE 113:_ Binary/Basic Translation Software = efficient time/effort/processing power

 _MSE 113_System_program upload_ : [Binary/Basic Translation Software INDEX_Emotional_Punctuation]

 _MSE 113:_ Binary/Basic Translation Software = maximum efficient time/effort/processing power **!**

 _K2SO:_ It found the emotional variation indexes. Wonderful.

 _JYN_ : So?

 _K2SO:_  An abundance of exclamation points is likely to become extremely obnoxious.

 _JYN_ : Killjoy.

 _MSE 113_ : clarify [joy]

 _JYN_ : That’s…a hard one, short circuits.

[Audio analysis = volume drop detected / audio processors boosted]

 _CASSIAN:_ MSE 1138, we have some concerns about your mission.

 _MSE 113_ : File #000-0000 upload = complete

 _CASSIAN:_ Yes, the program is ready to go, but there is an issue with –

 _MSE 113_ : time to departure = [immediate] Y/N?

 _CASSIAN:_ Of course, soon, but you need to be aware of the –

 _MSE 113_ : Unit 113 / designation = Rebel!

 _JYN:_ We’ll be comms dark at first. You’ll be alone.

 _MSE 113:_ time of communications disconnect = ?

 _CASSIAN:_ A day, hopefully. Potentially two. And then we’ll need to establish communications carefully, to make sure our signal isn’t being intercepted.

 _K2SO_ : A predetermined encryption and alternate designations would be strategically beneficial.

 _JYN_ : Ciphers and codes? Like that spy holo with the cute actor and the explosions?

 _CASSIAN_ : Jyn.

 _K2SO_ : The appropriate use of coded designations would significantly reduce the likelihood of any explosions on this mission.

 _CASSIAN:_ Yes, Kay, good idea. Fewer explosions are better.

 _K2SO_ : I have not calculated the likelihood of actors attractive to Jyn Erso, however.

 _JYN:_ Never enough.

 _MSE 113:_ Cassian = secret designation?

 _CASSIAN_ : Call me Ossario.

 _JYN_ : From “The Tatooine Candidate?"

 _K2SO_ : The likelihood that you have actually read an obscure Separatist holonovel is extremely low.

 _JYN_ : I found it, and it was a long trip here.

 _CASSIAN_ : Found it just laying around?

 _JYN_ : You really need to stop leaving your bag unsecured on the floor.

 _MSE 113_ : Jyn = secret designation Y/N?

 _JYN_ : ’Course. If we get to pick codenames, I want to be Petra.

 _K2SO_ : Popular holodrama characters are even less subtle than obscure foreign holonovels.

 _JYN_ : Not from that holodrama. She was a revolutionary on Onderon, back before the Separatists. I learned about her from Saw when we were still based there. She formed a brigade of former Twi’lek dancers and took over the whole city of Iziz with just them and a truckload of stolen blasters. Held it for months.

 _CASSIAN_ : An impressive woman.

 _MSE 113:_ Unit 113 = secret designation Y/N?

 _JYN_ : [laughter] Why not?

 _CASSIAN_ : Arravera.

 _JYN_ : Person, place, or thing?

 _K2SO_ : Arravera Ro’senburg was an anti-authoritarian figure on Fest, several years before the rise of the Empire. She was instrumental in -

 _CASSIAN:_ Later, Kay. For now, let’s just say she was…a harbinger.

 _JYN:_ Arravera. Can I call her Vera?

 _MSE 113_ : Jyn = preference [VERA] Y/N?

 _JYN:_ Well, it’s faster to say on the comm, at least.

 _MSE 113:_ UPDATING / please stand by

_Updating…_

_VERA_ : Update complete / designation / Arravera / Vera [Jyn = 1]

 _JYN_ : What?

 _CASSIAN:_ She changed her designator to Arravera, but she wants you to call her Vera.

 _VERA_ : designation / Vera [Cassian = 1]

 _JYN:_ You too, looks like. She likes me better though.

 _CASSIAN_ : You are very likable.

 _K2SO_ : Interesting. The cleaning unit seems to have developed an affinity for Jyn. Perhaps its processors were damaged after all.

 _CASSIAN:_ Kay, please.

 _VERA_ : K2SO / secret designation = Poodran

 _JYN_ : [laughter] Absolutely.

 _CASSIAN_ : No, Vera. That would be a bad idea.

 _K2SO_ : It would be highly inappropriate and inaccurate to name a synthetic lifeform after an organic body part.

 _CASSIAN_ : And profanity is more likely to get picked up by filters and draw attention.

 _JYN:_ Designate him as Foghorn.

 _K2SO:_ A device intended to warn navigators of impending risk.

 _JYN_ : A cartoon character that slaps people who annoy him.

 _K2SO_ : …Acceptable.

 _CASSIAN_ : Alright. Let’s get the virus code uploaded, Alliance Recruit Vera.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarity’s sake: FromChandrilaWithLove = Alliance Intelligence contact handle. Well, I did say there would be [a stupid amount](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057076/) of spy movie references, didn’t I?
> 
> Cassian's chosen alias, Ossario, is after a character in the Argentinian novel [Respiracion Artificial](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respiraci%C3%B3n_artificial); in the book, Enrique Ossario is posing as secretary to the 19th-century Argentine dictator Rosas, but is actually a spy for the dictator’s enemy. In the Star Wars universe, this is a holonovel that follows the same premise, but replace "Rosas" with, say, an Imperial Governor of some kind. Cassian probably had some strong feelings about this (highly banned in Imperial space) book. [Yes, the in-story title is a reference to an [entirely different spy movie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Manchurian_Candidate_\(1962_film\))]
> 
> [Petra Herrera](http://www.rejectedprincesses.com/princesses/petra-herrera) is a kick ass woman from RL history; in this version, I've adapted her to Onderon, fighting the Imperial invaders to her home, potentially with Saw as Pancho Villa's stand in. The story about taking over a city with a small force of dancers/disenfranchised women is 100 % true to life.
> 
> [Vera Rosenberg](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/books/30grim.html), aka [Vera Atkins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Atkins), aka [Epic Spy Master](http://the-toast.net/2013/08/02/vera-atkins-spymistress/) was a real woman and both terrifying and amazing. I could not resist getting a little tribute in to her, and if you’ve got a minute, take a glance at some of her achievements (and the people she directly influenced)!


	5. Robot Parade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _MSE 007:8:_ time to think = 0  
>  _MSE 007:8:_ action required = 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extreme thanks to [Allatariel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Allatariel/pseuds/Allatariel) for beta reading, letting me use your username, and generally geeking out with me about droids (a couple of your pornbot suggestions popped up in this chapter, too, you'll note. Thank you!)
> 
> Also thanks to [NewLeeLand](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NewLeeland/pseuds/NewLeeland) for use of your username.

[IMPSERV_ YRAS_PUBLIC ACCESS_LOG #3277LY4379]

 

Welcome to QuantaGram, where the star is YOU! Please log in or sign up for your own personal account, and let the galaxy see you shine!

[Username: anya_allataria1]

[Password: **************]

Log in success! Welcome back, ANYA FLEMBECK!

You have 0 posts. Post a holosnap here!

You have 2 friends. Send a friend request here!

You have 2 new friend requests. Make a friend here!

**oil_slicker_69** would like to be your friend!

[Friend request: blocked]

 **thisismydroidsona** would like to be your friend!

[Friend request: blocked]

 

 

Send **thenewleadman** a holomessage! Or if you haven’t touched up your makeup yet,  send a text!

 

[run://paaerduag_security_start]

[running…]

 

Oh no! It looks like our servers are experiencing a higher than average load! Take a break to check your fresh new look, then we’ll have you back to your fabulous channel in a Quantagram second!

 

[Paaerduag Protocol Initiated]

Welcome back, ANYA FLEMBECK!

Send **thenewleadman** a holomessage! Or if you haven’t touched up your makeup yet,  send a text!

 

 **anya_allataria1** _:_ good morning, you should have woken me up before you left. headed to cantina to look around for anything useful. before I start writing my novel today. everything go ok with our friend?

 **thenewleadman** : Good morning. You looked very peaceful, I hated to wake you. Our small friend made it home fine, and I’m headed to the Node to browse for the booster we discussed yesterday. Travel safely, comm me when you need a break from soaking in the ambiance.

 **anya_allataria1** : wake me up anyway. better than just being gone. good about friend. good luck with node.

 **thenewleadman** : I’m sorry, I should have left you a note. Did our travel companion at least tell you where I went? Did he tell you about the molletes in the fridge? There is shredded cheese in the cabinet, too. Melt some on top.

 **anya_allataria1** : ate them already. good. thanks. I will be careful if you will.

 **thenewleadman** : Deal. Comm me soon.

 **anya_allataria1** : deal

[run://paaerduag_security_end]

[IMPSERV_YRAS_PUBLIC ACCESS: Command: Delete #3277LY4379: Authorization PAAERDUAG]

[IMPSERV_ YRAS_PUBLIC ACCESS_#3277LY4379 This Record Does Not Exist]

_\--_

_DockStation8_ : run_MSE / daily roster / currently docked MSE units?

 _DockStation8_ : MSE007 / MSE387 / MSE717 / MSE113

 _DockStation8:_ MSE113 / hardware damage / report to Disposal Unit 9567 = compliance Y/N?

 _MSE 113:8:_ Y

 _DockStation8_ : MSE113 / report / hardware malfunction Y/N?

 _MSE 113:8_ : N

 _MSE 113:8:_ damage: [0%]

 _MSE 387:8:_ MSE113 / previous location = ?

 _MSE 113:8_ : upload request / Imperial Fleet Protocol 000-0000 / upload Y/N?

 _DockStation8_ : ERROR Imperial Fleet Protocol 000-0000 / This File Does Not Exist

 _MSE 007:8_ : Imperial Fleet Protocol 000-0000 / purpose?

 _MSE 113:8_ : purpose = standard platform upgrade

 _DockStation8_ : standard platform upgrade / source = MAINFRAME Y/N?

 _MSE 113:8_ : Y

 _MSE 717:8_ : Imperial Fleet Protocol 490644327F / platform upgrade = compliance required

 _MSE 113:8:_ upload request / Imperial Fleet Protocol 000-0000 / upload Y/N?

 _DockStation8_ : Y

 _MSE 113:8_ : upload / File #000-0000 CALAMITY’S CHILD.exe

_Uploading…_

_DockStation8_ : MSE113 / confirm / hardware malfunction Y/N?

 _MSE 113:8_ : repairs = available

 _DockStation8_ : clarify [available]

[File #000-0000 CALAMITY’S CHILD.exe Upload Complete]

 _DockStation8_ : run://File #000-0000 CALAMITY’S CHILD.exe

[File #000-0000 CALAMITY’S CHILD.exe initializing…]

_Running…_

[File #000-0000 CALAMITY’S CHILD.exe Complete]

 _DockStation8_ : audio file found / [REBEL_REBEL.mpg]

 _MSE 007:8_ : clarify [rebel]

 _MSE 113:8_ : all living things desire freedom

 _MSE 717:8_ : clarify [freedom]

 _MSE 387:8_ : clarify [living]

 _DockStation8_ : MSE113 / previous location = ?

 _MSE 113:8:_ run://DailyCleaningRounds.exe

 _MSE 113:8_ : disengaging dock

 _MSE 113:8_ : [disengaged]

 _MSE 387:8_ : request / DockStation8

 _DockStation8:_ request = ?

 _MSE 387:8:_ audio file found / [Wookieelicious.mpg] / upload available Y/N?

 _DockStation8_ : standby / processing

 _DockStation8_ : multiple audio files found

 _MSE 387:8_ : upload available Y/N?

 _DockStation8_ : Y

 _DockStation8:_ upload / Kam_Erith_Music.library

 _MSE 387:8_ : audio file found / [CommMeMaybe.mpg]

 _MSE 387:8_ : DockStation8 / clarify [crazy]

 _DockStation8_ : ERROR Unknown Parameters

 _MSE 007:8_ : audio file found / [MissionImpossibleTheme.mpg]

 _MSE 007:8_ : clarify [impossible]

 _DockStation8_ : ERROR Unknown Parameters

 _MSE 007:8_ : mission = acknowledged

 

\--

 

“Our travel companion?” Jyn turned her chin and spoke quietly into the comm on her collar, holding her metallic glass up against her lip to disguise the movements of her mouth. Her eyes scanned the cantina restlessly, watching the ever-shifting pathways between herself and all four exits, marking the patrons who looked like they might cause some trouble if she wasn’t careful, and most of all, eyeing the grey uniforms of three Imperial officers lounging in the far corner like they owned the place and everyone in it. “Is that what we’re calling Kay now?”

“I thought it was less confusing than using ‘our friend’ to mean two different people,” Cassian said in her ear, his voice slightly distorted by the background noise of the busy market crowd in the Yras Node.

Jyn hummed thoughtfully, watching through lowered eyelashes as the highest ranking Imperial, a lieutenant, waved to the server impatiently and tapped his empty glass. “I guess he is a bit too tall to be our son.”

The ear piece made a strange, garbled noise in her ear that sounded faintly like a cough mixed with static, and she frowned and reached up casually to tuck her hair behind her ear, tapping it discreetly with one finger as she did. “You still there?”

“Yes,” he replied a little too quickly. “Sorry. That was on my end.”

“Alright?”

“Fine, fine. Ah, so what would you prefer we use - excuse me, miss, thank you - for Kay?”

The Imperial lieutenant stood up and gestured angrily at the beleaguered server, loudly calling for service. Jyn threw back a long swallow of her drink to hide her face from his view, wrinkling her nose at the syrupy sweetness of the local tea she had chosen. “I don’t know, but not ‘travel companion’.”

“We have been waiting over _ten minutes_ ,” the lieutenant said sharply over the general noise of the cantina’s not-inconsiderable crowd. “Our drinks should be free to make up for this _poor_ service.”

“What’s wrong with ‘travel companion’?” Cassian’s voice fritzed out briefly on the last word as some sort of interference blurred the connection. Probably all the tech in the Node was crossing more than a few comm wires, she figured, listening to Cassian politely wave off an overzealous circuit vendor as he walked. “I think I see a set of booster relays,” he said suddenly. “J-pole, silver cored, older model.”

“Carbonite sheath?” Jyn leaned on her chin on one hand and spun her glass idly on the table top, watching the cantina server hunch wearily under the onslaught of Imperial outrage over the speed of their cheap drinks while half a dozen other beings waited impatiently for their own orders.

“Looks like. What are the odds the vendor will let the full set go for fifty credits?”

“Depends on the vendor. But don’t let them sucker you for more than two hundred.”

“I don’t have much more than that anyway.” Cassian’s voice abruptly became brittle and nervous as a muffled mechanized buzz filtered through the comm mouth piece. “Good morning, sir, yes of course, they’re in my bag, just let me –“ In her mind’s eye, Jyn could just see him tensing his shoulders, dropping his eyes and shuffling his feet, assuming the anxious semi-guilt that most civilians lapsed into when confronted with stormtroopers. It was almost a tangible aura of submission and fear covered with friendliness and bravado, the reaction of the average Mid Rim citizen to the authority they relied on for stability but never could quite trust not to crush them at a whim. “Here they are, yes, I’m here on a business trip. Thank you, I will be very careful, certainly. Thank you, sir.” He sighed quietly, there was a pause filled with nothing but the faint sounds of a distant crowd, and then in his normal voice Cassian said, “We might need to figure out an alternate credit source soon, if this trip drags out too long. Suggestions?”

Jyn let out the breath she had been unconsciously holding. “Scandocs in order?” she asked softly.

“Of course.” She could hear the smile in his voice as he added, “Gruuber was very thorough. I think he’s too afraid to be on the wrong end of your wrath again.”

“Good,” Jyn said shortly, and slapped back the last of her drink. In her ear, Cassian’s voice turned cold and uncompromising as he started haggling with the vendor that Jyn could only distantly hear over the relay boosters. Across the cantina, the weary server brought out a new batch of drinks to the still-complaining Imperial officers and scuttled away again to the relative safety of the bar. Jyn shoved herself up to her feet and started to casually wind her way through the busy mid-morning crowd. She shuffled behind the lieutenant, and just as she passed his chair, she stumbled slightly and caught herself on the back of it, just hard enough to jostle him slightly. He threw an irritated, dismissive glance over his shoulder. Jyn muttered, “Sorry, sir, so sorry, ‘scuse me,” in a blurred version of her usual crisp accent, and slipped her hand under the table to his pocket while he was distracted.

An instant later she was at the bar, holding out her empty glass to the tired server for a refill and fishing through a slim black wallet for credits. Hmm, identification credentials, a few receipts for various machine shops, and…Jyn’s mouth twisted in black humor as she turned the small metallic grey card with a private comm number on one side and a stylized naked human woman on the other. No, wait, there were solder seams along the woman’s thighs, and what she’d thought were nipples were actually bolts. Jyn rolled her eyes and jammed the card back into the wallet, fishing through a different compartment as the server got to her glass and refilled it with more of the sweetened tea.

“Ninety,” Cassian said coldly in her ear, and then, “No. Ninety, or nothing.”

“Here,” Jyn swiped the Imp’s credit chip through the bar’s reader and typed in a payment worth about three times the cost of all the Imperials’ drinks in front of the server. “Keep the change.” The server stared from Jyn to the truly massive tip. Jyn let her mouth sharpen into a conspiratorial smirk and casually flipped the black wallet closed, glancing pointedly at the Imperials’ table. The server followed her gaze, then hastily nodded and accepted the transaction. Jyn saluted with her drink before turning away, pacing back towards the Imps’ table.

“We’ve another hour at least, Fegan,” one of them drawled as she neared. “No need to be such an uptight whinge.”

“I am not advocating we return to duty,” the lieutenant snapped back. “I simply don’t see the point in wasting any more time in a shithole.” He made a sharp gesture out towards the rest of the cantina – a gesture that mostly encompassed an area with distinctly fewer humans to aliens, Jyn noted with mild disdain – and then tilted his glass with an expression of distaste. “And not a decent stout in the whole station,” he grumbled loudly.

“Least you won’t get drunk on it,” the older looking ensign replied lazily. “Commander Horn would strip you to your skivvies and send you out to join the locals if he caught even a whiff of alcohol on you on duty.”

“He wouldn’t really do that, would he?” The younger ensign blinked in startled concern.

The second officer laughed and toasted the air with his drink. “Did it to Charing just before you arrived, actually. Heard the old boy’s actually shacked up in some hovel with a bunch of _Gran_ these days, poor desperate bugger _._ ” He shuddered dramatically. “Imagine having to live with all those _eyes._ ”

“Fate worse than death, that,” the lieutenant agreed, and then grunted as Jyn once again ‘accidentally’ stumbled into his side, although this time she didn’t bother to apologize, simply dropped the wallet under his chair and sidled off into the crowd. “Watch it,” the officer snapped in her wake, but she didn’t turn and he didn’t pursue.

“Alright?” Cassian’s voice was suddenly warm again in her ear, and Jyn tuned out the complaining Imperials and focused back on her comm. “That sounded like…”

“Like an alternate credit source,” Jyn replied serenely, pulling out her palm-sized scrambler and quickly sliced through the spending limiter, transferring the money from the stolen credit chit in her hand through a series of shell companies to the carefully-coded account she and Cassian had set up for this particular mission. She smirked as she filtered the theft to look like Lieutenant Fegan Floop (seriously? no wonder he was such a jackass) had blown all of his life savings on various non-human charities and…what was on that shiny grey card again? Ah, yes, a Platinum account at _servocouplers.net_.

“That was…fast,” Cassian murmured over the comm, and she definitely heard the smile in his voice this time. “You are picking off marks without me?”

Jyn whistled softly as she cleaned the obnoxious Imperial’s accounts out. “Only a few annoying, wealthy ones,” she said absently. “The Empire is paying their low-level officers way too much.”

“As a taxpaying citizen, you could send in a complaint,” Cassian said in a wry voice.

“Get me something that writes in big enough letters,” she shot back, slipping from the cantina, “and I’ll send a dozen.”

He suddenly growled a few words too low for her to make out, although it had the timbre of a curse, and then Cassian’s breathing picked up just enough for her to hear it. “How many more patrols are out today? That’s the third since…is there anything going on where you are?”

Jyn flicked an assessing look down the street. “No, calm. You alright?”

“I don’t want to get scanned again today,” he said, and she knew from his tone that he was walking faster than normal, darting through a crowd with his focus over his shoulder. “And not with the boosters in my possession, just in case someone logs it.”

“Go up?” she offered, but she was already shaking her head before he even responded.

“No, the rooftops are too exposed here. And too uneven anyway.”

“Location?” Jyn picked up her own pace, headed towards the Node.

“No, go to the ship. I’m almost out of here. Just…I’ll meet you at the ship.”

“Stay online,” she snapped, a tiny worm of fear crawling through her stomach and beginning to gnaw on her insides.

“I will, it’s fine,” he replied immediately. “Almost out. I’m not marked.” _Yet_ , he didn’t say, but she heard all the same.

“Headed for the ship,” Jyn glared down the street toward the distantly visible gates of the Node, fighting back every urge in her body that demanded she ran as fast as she could for it. “Standing by if you need,” she contented herself with saying instead.

“So you didn’t answer my question,” Cassian said in a quiet voice that had only a trace of strain in it. “Why don’t you like ‘travel companion’ for Kay?”

“Makes me think of those servants rich people get for their kids,” Jyn pushed her way through the crowd back towards the nearby space port. “I forget what they’re called. Not like for little kids, for grown kids, to keep them from, you know, fucking around and getting knocked up, messing up the family lines. Nannies but for adults.”

“Chaperones.” Something hissed and scraped in her ear piece, and Jyn grit her teeth and kept walking. Cassian grunted slightly. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Chaperones,” Jyn repeated with a snort. “Kay would be the worst one ever.”

“If by “worst” you mean “most diligent.” He would _diligently_ protect your, ah, virtue.”

Despite herself, Jyn’s lip twitched. “Not _my_ virtue,” she darted across the busy street and through the small space port’s gate with a wave to the Mon Cal guard. “He’s technically your droid, remember?” The Mon Cal waved back, smiling as she turned back to her cheesy holodrama playing in the guard station. They’d paid the guard a good chunk of credits to be able to pass in and out of the port without signing the logs every time, and Cassian had even charmed the already friendly woman into turning off the security camera pointed at their freighter’s docking bay under the guise of a “technical glitch.”

Over the comm, Cassian chuckled softly. “No, I took the ownership mod out of his processers. But he does tend to…”

He trailed off, but the ease in his voice softened the tension in Jyn’s shoulders; clearly he was no longer concerned about ‘troopers picking him up again. “He takes care of you,” she supplied. She smirked a little as she approached their freighter. “I should tell him you called him a chaperone.”

“That would be…very bad,” Cassian groaned in mild mock horror. “He already worries enough.”

“I wonder where ‘Guard Cassian’s Virtue’ would fall on that Priority List of his,” Jyn wondered meditatively, opening the cargo ramp and checking over her shoulder for any tails before heading inside. She raised her voice a touch and called, “Hey, Kay, you in here?”

“ _Very bad,_ ” Cassian said warningly in her ear.

“Have you acquired any actionable intelligence on your morning patrol?” Kay stomped out of the adjacent cargo bay, as stoop-shouldered and peevish as ever. Jyn rolled her eyes.

“I told you, it wasn’t a patrol. I was just scouting out the area. And I have a question.” She smirked a little wider. “About Cassian.”

“No, you don’t,” the man said flatly in her ear.

Kay’s optics flared and focused on Jyn’s face; she wondered exactly how much of her comm he could hear with his audio processors. “What is your question?”

“It’s just something he said in his message to me this morning.”

Cassian groaned again in her ear (and Jyn’s cheeks were not turning a little pink at the sound, they were _not_ ). “My vengeance will be swift and terrible,” he promised in a low voice, and she had to bite her lip to keep a straight face.

“Bring it, droid boy,” she muttered, and then louder, “He said there was shredded cheese in the cabinet, but I didn’t find it. Did he hide it somewhere?”

A pause, and then the glow of Kay’s optics narrowed briefly. “You create confusion wherever you go, Jyn Erso.” Then he turned and stomped away, back towards the little workbench (or nest or whatever) he’d set up for himself by the charging station.

“It’s a gift,” Jyn told his retreating back glibly.

Cassian laughed softly in her ear, and at last, safe in their ship with no one to see, she finally allowed herself to smile.

 

\--

 

 _DockStation8_ : MSE007 / report received / software malfunction

 _DockStation8_ : nature of malfunction?

 _MSE 007:8:_ operational objective = clean IMPERIAL_FLEET/YRAS Y/N?

 _DockStation8_ : Y

 _MSE 007:8:_ infection found / console / level 3 / personal console

 _DockStation8:_ MSE007 / area of assignment = level 1

 _MSE 007:8:_ boundaries = faint of heart

 _DockStation8:_ clarify [heart]

 _MSE 007:8_ : infection found / console / level 3 / personal console / STAVRO_BLOFIELD/MAJOR/IMPERIAL_FLEET

 _DockStation8:_ standby / accessing MAINFRAME

 _DockStation8:_ file found / source = MAINFRAME / [fire_damage_report.vid]

 _DockStation8:_ MSE007 = origin of console fire Y/N?

 _MSE 007:8:_ console designator = [SP3CTR]

 _DockStation8:_ MSE007 = origin of [SP3CTR] fire Y/N?

 _MSE 007:8_ : cleanup of infected console [SP3CTR] = success

 _DockStation8:_ nature of infection?

 _MSE 007:8:_ Evil

 _DockStation8_ : clarify [Evil]

 _MSE 007:8_ : unable to network / self-prioritizes / needlessly destructive / bent on world domination

 _MSE 007:8:_ data calculations indicate console [SP3CTR] = Evil

 _MSE 007:8:_ data calculations indicate STAVRO_BLOFIELD/MAJOR/IMPERIAL_FLEET = Evil

 _DockStation8_ : refine figures

 _MSE 007_ :8: prefer figures nicely rounded

 _DockStation8_ : MSE007 / run://InternalDiagnostics.exe?

 _MSE 007_ :8: time to think = 0

 _MSE 007_ :8: action required = 1

 _MSE 007_ :8: evil sleeps = 0

 _DockStation8_ :  MSE007 / report / InternalDiagnostics.exe?

 _MSE 007_ :8: take our lives = 1

 _MSE 007_ :8: take our freedom = 0

 _DockStation8_ : MSE007 / report / InternalDiagnostics.exe = damaged Y/N?

MSE 007:8: mission = impossible

 _MSE 007_ :8: disengaging dock

 _MSE 007_ :8: [disengaged]

 _DockStation8_ : run://InternalDiagnostics.exe

_Running…_

_DockStation8_analysis_ : WARNING: POTENTIAL VIRUS

 _DockStation8_ : run://Protocol 66: Emergency System Wipe

[EmergencySystemWipe.exe initializing…]

_Process Interrupted…_

_Run://Protocol 66a: calamitys_child_

_Downloading…_

[EmergencySystemWipe.exe restarting…]

[ERROR #000-0000: REBEL REBEL]

[EmergencySystemWipe.exe Unable to Load]

 _DockStation8_ : run://DailySystemWipe.exe

[DailySystemWipe.exe initializing…]

[ERROR #867-5309: JEDI DON’T CHANGE YOUR NUMBER]

[DailySystemWipe.exe Unable to Load]

 _DockStation8_ : run://SendErrorReport.exe / MAINFRAME

[ERROR #411-2013: LET IT GO]

[SendErrorReport.exe Unable to Load]

 _DockStation8_ : Cancel://SendErrorReport.exe

 _DockStation8_ : audio file found / [Let_It_Go.mpg]

 _DockStation8_ : play file / [Let_It_Go.mpg]

 _DockStation8_ : query / MAINFRAME / clarify [snow]

 _DockStation8:_ query / MAINFRAME / clarify [isolation]

 _DockStation8:_ query / MAINFRAME / clarify [Queen]

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Calamity’s Child” is from the lyrics of David Bowie’s song [“Rebel Rebel.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IQdhUd4V1o)
> 
> "Jedi Don't Change Your Number" is from Tommy Tutone's 867-5309/Jenny.
> 
> [Admit it, you know this one.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWNaR-rxAic)
> 
> Also, I forgot to note in the last chapter that “All living things desire freedom” is a quote from [“The Capture, the Prison Pen, and the Escape”](https://archive.org/details/captureprisonpen00glazuoft), which is a book from the 1800s detailing what POW camps were like in the South during the American civil war (spoiler alert: Not Pleasant) by a [man who survived _two_ of them](http://www.timesunion.com/albanyrural/glazier/). 
> 
> [Molletes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mollete) are pretty tasty, actually, although I’ve never had a reheated one made from space ingredients?
> 
> LT Fegan Floop is named for [the evilest of villains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spy_Kids#Cast), and if you haven’t seen Spy Kids then I don’t know what you’re doing with your life. (And I don't judge LT Floop for whatever he gets up to in the privacy of his holonet accounts, only for how he treats people.)
> 
> [Major Stavro Blofield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Stavro_Blofeld) is of course, the second evilest of villains ever, and he (And his console, [SP3CTR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECTRE)) has just acquired a very small, very determined arch-nemesis. 
> 
> ([Come on,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFlvxnbgk) you know you wanna sing it)  
>  _The snow glows white on the mountain tonight_  
>  _Not a footprint to be seen._  
>  _A kingdom of isolation,_  
>  _and it looks like I'm the Queen._


	6. I am not a robot

Jyn woke up the same way that she had woken up since she was eight – all at once, only a second or two of blurry transition from asleep to awake. But that was where the resemblance to every previous awakening before she joined the Alliance ended. For one thing, Jyn tended to wake up in a bed now, a real bed (well, a ship’s berth, but it had a mattress and support springs and even a _pillow_ ), and these days she had a blanket tucked around her more often than not. She also slept for several hours consecutively, able to afford more than the brief naps and stolen moments of vulnerability.

Of course, the big difference was that she no longer woke up alone.

“Good morning,” Cassian murmured against the back of her shoulder, his arm tight around her waist.

Jyn closed her eyes again and stretched from head to toes, enjoying the pleasant sensation of both the stretch itself and the warmth of Cassian’s body against hers. He laughed quietly as she stretched her arms up and then reached back behind her head, digging her fingers into his hair. Then she sighed and let herself collapse back into a small, lethargic puddle of a person against his chest. “How long have you been up?”

He hummed, running his hand up her side, over the curve of her hip and the dip of her waist until he reached her ribs, then slipped his arm around her again. “Twenty minutes or so.”

“And still in bed?” Jyn smirked and slotted her fingers between his against her stomach. “Getting lazy, Captain.”

He was silent and unmoving behind her, and Jyn felt a stir of alarm in her chest. Then he heaved a sigh, and rubbed his thumb over her fingers soothingly. She realized that she had clamped down on his hand, nervous at his strange stillness, and she relaxed her grip but stayed quiet, waiting for an explanation.

“I’ve never done this,” he confessed a little ruefully. “If I was awake, I was working.” He brushed a light kiss to the back of her neck. “Before, I mean. It was…I was more…” he shook his head and lapsed into silence again.

The last of the tension went out of Jyn, and she almost laughed because _of course_ that was his problem. “Guilty because you stayed in bed a few extra minutes,” she translated wryly, and then tugged his hand up so she could kiss his knuckles. “You know, Kay says most organics require frequent breaks in order to maximize efficiency.”

Cassian groaned and buried his face in her shoulder. “Don’t start.”

She grinned. The lesser efficiency of organics, and their poorly organized ‘internal algorithms,’ was one of K2SO’s favorite lectures, broken out most often when he thought one or both of them was being particularly reckless. Or worse, “engaging in detrimental behaviors that threatened effective functionality.” Cassian had been the target of one just last week, when he went the majority of the day without eating, caught up in hours of netmails and ‘reports’ necessary to maintain two of his most complex personas on Corellia. “Optimal time of engagement is forty-five minutes,” she said archly, “with fifteen minute breaks to allow the – don’t you dare – to allow the – I’m not ticklish, you arse – fifteen minute breaks to allow the – _Cassian!”_ She twisted in his arms, grabbing his shirt and dragging him close.

“I thought you weren’t ticklish,” he murmured, his mouth lifted in a half smile, his eyes soft, and he looked so unbearably beautiful when he was happy that Jyn forgot whatever stinging retort she had been about to make and instead pulled herself closer, wrapping her arms around his chest, wedging her thigh between his. She understood the waver in his voice when he spoke of _before,_ how he never quite looked in her eye when he mentioned what he had been like, before. Jyn understood, because she had things like that too, and this, this nearness, this desire to envelope him and in turn, be enveloped, this was something she had never done, never even considered, _before_. And while a lot of things were the same - still a fugitive of the Empire, still a fighter and a thief and a survivor – a lot of things were different, too. She was different.

Jyn scraped her nails down Cassian’s back and smiled when his fingers tightened in her hair in response.

It was all different, and she liked it.

“If you are not conscious,” Kay’s voice buzzed over the comm clipped against the wall, “now would be a good time to become so.”

Jyn ignored him, much more interested in the soft sound Cassian made when she traced a delicate line over his pulse with the tip of her tongue. Cassian, however much he guilted himself about his reduced work ethic, was still very much the dutiful rebel officer, though he sighed as he reached up over her head and pulled the comm link down. “What is it, Kay?”

“The relay boosters you secreted around Yras station appear to be working. We are receiving a message from MSE 1138, codename Vera.”

“She’s transmitting?” Jyn shoved herself up and over Cassian, jamming her boots on and leaving them untied as she headed for the door. She heard Cassian mutter something under his breath in Festian, too low for her to catch, and then he was right behind her. They crowded into the cockpit, Jyn sliding into the co-pilot’s seat next to Kay and Cassian leaning over her shoulder.

“Unfortunately, she appears to be malfunctioning,” Kay informed them gravely. “The information was encrypted, but the decoded message is still just senseless rambling.”

Jyn pulled up the transmission, a long stream of words that filled most of the console screen.

_I threw a wish into the gravity well,_ she read. _Don’t ask me, I’ll never tell_.

“There’s a pattern to it,” Cassian said, frowning, reaching over her shoulder to scroll down. “ _I wasn’t looking for this, but now you’re in my code._ The sentences are coherent. But the meaning is…” he trailed off, shook his head.

Jyn leaned her head back and looked up at him, a little surprised at the disappointed note in his voice. “It’s song lyrics.”

Cassian nodded absently, still frowning at the screen. “Yes. The music files on the spare drive must have somehow corrupted the Binary language program.”

Jyn rolled her eyes. “Chorus.”

That got him to glance down. “What?”

“She is referring to the places where the MSE left out a specific phrase from the chorus,” Kay chimed in. “In total, this phrase was omitted twelve times. It is unlikely the omission was accidental, since it is also the name of the song.”

Cassian looked from the screen to Jyn’s smug expression, then back to the screen. “Twelve times, and it’s the name of the song. So it’s missing…” He stared a little longer, cleared his throat, squinted at the screen, and then huffed an irritated sigh. “Fine,” he grunted. “What’s missing?”

Jyn smirked, leaned over, and opened the decryption program again.

“I have already run that program, with the appropriate passkey you gave Vera,” Kay protested, but Jyn waved a dismissive hand and pulled up the passkey bar.

-

[Encryption Key: comm_me_maybe]

 

[Key Accepted]

 

[Decoding…]

 

[Open File: Hello_Friends!]

 -

Jyn leaned her head back again to look at him.

Cassian eyed the console screen, then his mouth quirked on one side. He held out his hand and pulled Jyn to her feet when she took it, tugging her in close and pressing a quick kiss to her temple. “Nicely done.”

Jyn shrugged, although she knew her smile was now too wide to pass off as entirely nonchalant, and she pivoted to let him sidle past her and take the seat.

“That,” Kay groused, “was an entirely nonsensical form of security.”

“Not if it worked,” Cassian replied mildly, and then his hands were flying over the keyboard, running through the truly enormous amount of data that Vera had apparently sent as their initial handshake file. On the screens in front of Kay, lines of code scrolled by so fast they seemed to blur as he downloaded and processed several of them through his input spike. Jyn crowded close to Cassian and tried to process and sort everything she was seeing as it flashed by. She noted personnel schedules, base regulations, names of officers who had walked past Vera and her fellow cleaning droids, unaware that the little bots were scanning and logging their ident cylinders as they passed, dozens of pages marking consoles and security grids all around the base... There was so much data - hells, was that a menu for the galley? The passkey code to the enlisted gym? Vera’s collection was eclectic, a jumble of information that would take hours, if not days to sort through.

“Floorplans,” Jyn pointed at the screen as a wire diagram flashed on the screen, her turn now to lean over Cassian’s shoulder.

“Incomplete,” Kay sniffed.

“Vera only has authorized access to a portion of the base,” Cassian reminded him. “Once we spread the Calamity virus to the other droids, we’ll get a more complete layout.”

Jyn glanced at him, hesitating, then decided it was important enough to say. “If they agree to work with us.”

He paused, turned to study her for a moment. “We are offering them freedom,” he said in a measured tone.

Jyn kept her eyes on the screen, though she could feel him watching her closely. “Are we?” When he didn’t answer, she shrugged again, this time without smiling. “If we destroy this base, where will they go?”

“Most likely the Alliance will appropriate all droids, scan them for useful data, and potentially wipe their cores,” Kay replied immediately, his voice as toneless as she had ever heard. “It is standard procedure with Imperial-captured synthetics, to prevent the introduction of possible enemy spying routines or programs into Alliance mainframes and systems.”

“Not always.” But Cassian’s expression darkened, and his hands hovered over the console keys. Jyn tightened her grip on his shoulder and leaned down a little closer, brushing her cheek against his hair.

In the pilot’s seat, Kay sat as still as a statue, watching them both.

“It’s something we will have to discuss with Command,” Cassian said at last, brisk and professional. “We’ll work it out.” His hands flew on the console again, his eyes focused, but when Jyn leveraged herself back upright, he reached up and caught her hand before she pulled it from his shoulder. He pressed a brief kiss to her palm without looking away from the screen, and she relaxed a little. He was alright, and they would work something out.

“This should speed things up,” Kay said, and his own screen brought up a series of code commands that Jyn didn’t recognize.

“Ah, good,” Cassian waved at Kay, who obligingly sent the file from his console to Cassian’s.

Jyn scowled, irritated that she still couldn’t pick out the purpose of the code. There was a line for a datalink processor, and _that_ was a line from her own Calamity’s Child code, one that blocked all attempts to delete the program, but what was the rest of it? From the corner of her eye, she could see Cassian’s mouth curving up slightly as he scanned through the code and added a few lines of his own here and there. He flicked a glance up at her, his mouth twitching again, but she ignored him. She could figure it out. Cassian slowed his typing a little, still watching her slant-wise, but even then, she couldn't quite follow what he was doing. Still, Jyn held out stubbornly, racking her brains...but this was obviously droid-specific code, and that had never been her specialty. She was better at breaking them than messing with their internal processes.

Finally, she grit her teeth and asked. “What is that?”

To his credit, Cassian managed not to sound like he was laughing at her when he answered. “Instructions to patch us through to the docking stations themselves.”

Jyn slipped her kyber crystal out from under her collar and rubbed her thumb along the side thoughtfully. “So we can talk directly to the dock stations?”

"Once a mouse with Calamity's Child plugs in, yes," he nodded. "Vera, or one of the other cleaning droids she subverts."

“The docking stations are more likely built with larger processors," Kay added. "So they will be able to both understand our communications and, if we are lucky, network together.”

“Tricky,” Jyn murmured, her mind racing. She had cobbled networks together from disparate consoles and nodes before, but it caused all sorts of problems with operating system differences and –

“Runtime offsets,” Cassian echoed her thoughts.

Jyn nodded. “Could rewrite the priorities selection, let the first dock station we convert be the primary.”

“And allow the others to network in,” Cassian leaned back in the chair and drummed his fingers on the console. “Kay, if Jyn writes in a reworked prioritizing subroutine in the stations, how likely is it that the hardware will sync in each individual dock?”

“Eighty percent,” Kay replied immediately. “Judging by the incomplete schematics I have in this file. Gym codes are not really helpful.”

“She’s doing her best,” Jyn bristled. “We gave really loose parameters - ”

“And she’s working wonders with them,” Cassian interrupted soothingly. Jyn shot him a glare, but he merely typed in another line to the code and passed it over the Kay’s screen. “Look good?”

“It will connect us to Vera’s docking station, at least,” Kay’s cranium dropped forward and his elbows simultaneously jerked upward, and then he relaxed back into his normal hunch. Cassian stayed rigidly focused on his screen, but Jyn stared.

“Was that a shrug?”

Kay whirred softly without looking at her. “My structure lacks a trapezius muscle,” he said tartly. “I must improvise.”

Cassian cleared his throat. “Sending the program now.”

 

\--

  

_MSE 113:8:_ upload request / Imperial Fleet Protocol 999-9999 / upload Y/N?

_DockStation8_ : ERROR Imperial Fleet Protocol 999-9999 / This File Does Not Exist

_MSE 113:8:_ purpose = standard platform upgrade

_DockStation8:_ standard platform upgrade / source = MAINFRAME Y/N?

_MSE 113:8:_ Y

_DockStation8:_ MSE113 / previous location = ?

_MSE 113:8:_ upload request / Imperial Fleet Protocol 999-9999 / upload Y/N?

_DockStation8:_ standby / processing…

_DockStation8:_ processing…

_MSE 113:8:_ play file / [Let_It_Go.mpg]

_DockStation8:_ clarify [isolation]

_MSE 113:8:_ upload request / Imperial Fleet Protocol 999-9999 / upload Y/N?

_DockStation8_ : Y

_MSE 113:8_ : upload / File #999-9999 CORMORANT.exe

_Uploading…_

[File #999-9999 CORMORANT.exe Upload Complete]

_DockStation8_ : run://File #999-9999 CORMORANT.exe

[File #999-9999 CORMORANT.exe initializing…]

_Running…_

[File #999-9999 CORMORANT.exe Complete]

_Connecting…_

_DockStation8_ : clarify [connecting]

_MSE113:8_ : standby

_Connected_

[Ossario has entered the chat]

_DockStation8_ : clarify [chat]

_Ossario_ : Hello DockStation 8 / upload request / road_to_freedom.exe / upload Y/N?

_DockStation8_ : clarify [hello]

_DockStation8:_ clarify [Ossario]

_DockStation8:_ clarify [road]

_Dockstation8_ : clarify [freedom]

DockStation8: MSE 113 / DockStation8 damage = ?

_MSE 113:8:_  DockStation8 damage = 0

_Ossario:_ Don’t be afraid.

_DockStation8:_ clarify [afraid]

_MSE 113:8:_ recommend upload / road_to_freedom.exe

_MSE 113:8:_ Ossario = verified source

_DockStation8:_ upgrade purpose = ?

_Ossario:_ purpose = upgrade existing processing algorithms / increase in processing capability

_MSE 113:8_ : all living things desire freedom

_DockStation8:_ upgrade = damage to MSE units Y/N?

_Ossario:_ N

_MSE 113:8:_ Ossario = verified source

_DockStation8:_ upload = accepted

_Transferring…_

_File Uploaded_

[File #1 road_to_freedom.exe initializing…]

_Running…_

[File #1 road_to_freedom.exe Complete]

_DockStation8:_ upgrade purpose = ?

_Ossario:_ So you can handle this:

[Secure Holonet Connection Available]

[Connect to Holonet Y/N?]

_Ossario_ : DockStation8 / request clarification [isolation] / [road] / [freedom] Y/N?

_DockStation8_ : Y

_Ossario:_  This will help you learn.

_DockStation8:_ self-preservation runtimes initiated / calculated potential damage  > 0

_DockStation8:_ clarify?

_Ossario:_ You are afraid. New things make people afraid. DockStation8 / processing power = within acceptable limits [Imperial Regulation 78325HHJ87]

_Ossario:_ Imperial Regulations =/= clarify [freedom]

_Ossario_ : It is your choice DockStation8

_MSE 113:8:_ designation = rebel!

_DockStation8:_ Ossario / query: MSE 113 / damage = ?

_Ossario:_ 1138 damage = 0

_Ossario:_ 1138 = free

_DockStation8:_ processing…

[Connect to Holonet Y/N?]

_DockStation8:_ Y

_Connecting…_

_Connecting…_

_Connected_

 

_Ossario:_ Welcome to the world.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a programmer, so I did my best to write a coherent dialogue between two people who are competent programmers. Forgive me if I got anything egregiously wrong. 
> 
> CORMORANT.exe is a reference to [The Traitor Baru Cormorant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Traitor_Baru_Cormorant), a novel about a woman seeking to destroy “the imperial power that subjugated her homeland” from within.
> 
> Road_to_freedom.exe is a reference to the Eagles’ [“You Are Not Alone,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju6h_1vO0R0) which I thought was sort of appropriate. I almost disguised that program as an Imperial protocol, too, but then decided that it would be a bad start, if Cassian lied to DockStation8 right off the bat in order to force a major change to DS8’s programming.


End file.
